The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Campaigning before campaign

    These politicians have started again. They have started before they should start. Starting ahead of time is not allowed in this case, which makes it illegal. It is not enough to point out the illegality, as the new Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Prof. AbdulGaniy Olayinka Raji, did in Ekiti State on September 20 when he addressed reporters in his office in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital.

    Raji spoke to reporters after a stakeholders’ meeting with “leaders of political parties under the auspices of Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC).” A report said: “Raji said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was empowered by law to prosecute politicians who engaged in any form of “early campaign” before the time allowed by law.”

    The report also said Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and other figures who are members of other parties had started activities that amounted to campaigning prematurely in connection with next year’s governorship election in the state.

    According to the report, “Fayose has erected billboards bearing his pictures and those of his deputy in which he referred to Olusola as “Your Next Governor.” Governorship aspirants of other parties also mounted billboards and banners in front of their campaign offices, on the major roads and boundaries of Ekiti with other neighbouring states.”

    In response, Raji was quoted as saying: “All these acts are not in line with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 and the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended). Activities that look like campaign are against the Constitution and people should desist from them. Media houses should scrutinise jingles and adverts that may implicate them. Any offender convicted is liable to a maximum fine of N500, 000 and a jail term at the discretion of the judge. The law also permits INEC to remove such billboards.”

    So, what is Raji waiting for? A law not enforced is a law not in force. Most likely, the law violators are aware of the law and conscious of its violation. The enforcement authorities should not speak and act in a way that suggests reluctance to enforce the law in the face of clear contravention. All talk and no action can’t be effective in this case.

    These politicians are behaving lawlessly, which is ironic, considering that they are seeking a position expected to uphold the law. Premature campaigning shows a lawless side of the characters involved and suggests desperation. It is dishonourable and deplorable.

  • A private letter in the public sphere

    When columnist Olatunji Dare returned to column writing for The Nation on September 12, after a two-week break, with a column titled “Back on the beat,” he drew public attention to a letter sent to him by Yusuph Olaniyonu, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to Senate President Bukola Saraki. The letter was Olaniyonu’s response to Dare’s column of August 15 titled “A preface to the silly season.”

    Dare said: “Olaniyonu sent it as a “private letter.”  But since it raises issues that belong in the public sphere, I sought his kind permission to publish it herewith, slightly edited.”

    In the said piece, Dare had focused on “those aspiring to be president,” saying what he presented was “by no means an exhaustive list.”  He added: “By the time the game really gets going, we may have as many as 240, if not more…As the game gathers momentum, almost everything else will be suspended.  Everything else will be subordinated to winning.”

    Dare’s list featured Saraki, which is why Olaniyonu wrote to him. The columnist had written: “Where else but up can Senate President Bukola Saraki go in the scheme of things?  Given the way he vaulted himself into his current position, and the Faustian bargain he made along the way, it was clear that he was out for the top job.”

    It is public knowledge that Saraki got to the helm of affairs at the Senate through an unapologetic defiance of his party’s desire and decision. The same twist resulted in a queer combination and cohabitation with Saraki of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as Senate President and  Ike Ekweremadu of the discredited Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as  Deputy Senate President. It is clear that Saraki is politically ambitious and perhaps desperate for high political office. His political moves and manoeuvres are the stuff of news, and stuff worthy of condemnation.

    So, Olaniyonu sounded unenlightened when he tried to fault “The Nation and Punch” for “their constant searchlight on Saraki and their unrepentant mischief against the man.”  He said of Dare’s list of possible presidential aspirants:  ”This error of omission or deliberate decision not to mention Asiwaju Tinubu gave an unmistakable impression that the article in question is part of the ploy by the Bourdillon media/Intellectual Think Thank to which you are widely believed to belong, to quickly take out the other potential rivals long before the race commences. However, I believe The Nation and its columnists will not have the last say on who becomes the next President after Buhari, either in 2019 or 2023.”

    Of course, it is expected that the sovereign electorate will have the last say when the time comes. It is also expected that insightful columnists like Dare will help shape public opinion so that the voters won’t endorse a figure with a questionable track record.

  • Now, the CJN is talking!

    The current Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, arrived at a most inauspicious time in Nigerian judicial history.

    Apart from sectional, North Vs South, bickering over his appointment — no thanks to his rather long acting period — he debuted at the height of perceived unparalleled graft in the judiciary.

    Indeed, so thick was the negative perception of the Judiciary, among, to use that legal-speak, “right-thinking members of the society”, that a columnist with The Nation weighed in with a rather irreverent piece: “His Lordship, the rogue”!

    In the classical times of the Nigerian judiciary, with the likes of “Socrates” Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, pristine “whistle-blower” on “billionaire judges”, Justice Kayode Eso, legal Titan and one-time Chief Justice of Botswana, Dr. Akinola Aguda, Justice Andrews Otutu Obaseki and other Titans of yore, pulling the strings during that golden era, that would have been an intolerable affront.

    But that piece met a country in foul and baleful mood, despite denials and rationalizations from the Bench and the Bar: the judiciary was a haven for baron judges and lawyers, that saw Justice as just another line in soulless racketeering!

    The CJN came in; and his body language, for quite some time, was that of one who would rather err in defending the status quo, rot, warts and all; than jump in as a flaming and ferocious angel, waving the fiery sword of reforms.

    To his left was the Buhari Presidency, charging the CJN and his National Judicial Council (NJC) with culpable indifference, in its anti-corruption war; inside and outside the Judiciary.  The tormentor-in-chief was Prof. Itse Sagay, the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC).

    To his left was the impatient media — or at least, a section of it — which quickly made up its mind that the Judiciary was colluding with crooks to evade justice; and that the CJN’s body language was not about to change anything.

    The CJN was right in the middle, dodging, so to speak, the flak!

    Well, Hardball can happily report, things appear to be changing.  The CJN just not only read the riot act that judicial corruption would no longer be tolerated, he also outlined clear policy frameworks to walk that tough talk.

    At the inauguration of new silks, the Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), the CJN announced the formation of new criminal divisions, from the high courts nationwide, to specially sit on corruption cases.  As the CJN was laying out his new plans, he thundered it would no longer be business as usual, for corrupt judges and lawyers.

    Though it’s early days yet — for implementation is usually a long walk from policy intentions, at least in these climes — Prof. Sagay is excited enough to thumb up the CJN and his new talk.  Not a few media analysts and commentators too, would likely feel upbeat at the new turn of events.

    Now, the CJN is talking!

    But even with this initial excitement, Hardball must warn that the CJN must back his rigorous talk with even a more vigorous walk.  Nigerians cannot wait for the conviction, after fair but speedy trials, of looters of public funds, who have beggared Nigeria and dispossessed Nigerians.

    That would be a fitting legacy for his tenure.

  • Pointless policies

    Professor Juliana Taiwo Makinde provided information worth thinking about when she delivered the 307th Inaugural Lecture of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, on September 12. She is “the first female Professor of Public Administration in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and also the first female Professor to give an Inaugural Lecture in the Department of Public Administration, OAU, Ile-Ife.” She focused on “Policy Somersaults, Poverty of Policy Implementation and Corruption: Obstacles to Development in Nigeria.”

    She showed “discontinuity in government policies as evidenced in the way First Ladies embarked on new programmes as soon as they come on board.” Her list: “The Better Life Programme” (BLP) was put in place in 1987 by the late Mrs. Mariam Babangida when her husband General Ibrahim Babangida was the Military President of Nigeria.  After her exit, the “Family Support Programme” (FSP) came into existence in 1994 after General Sani Abacha became the Head of State in November 1993.  After Mariam Abacha came Mrs. Fati Abubakar who initiated her own programme and suspended that of Mrs. Abacha.  Her own programme was named “Women’s Right Advancement and Protection Alternative” (WRAPA).  With the exit of Mrs. Abubakar, WRAPA metamorphosed into “Child Care Trust” (CCT) under the late Mrs. Stella Obasanjo.   The pet project of the wife of the successor of Obasanjo – Turai Yar’Adua was “Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation.” Dame Patience Jonathan also had her own pet project which she named “Women For Change Initiative” while the present First Lady, Aisha Buhari, has her own project called “Project Future Assured” (PFA).” She observed that the list “reflects discontinuity of programmes in Nigeria…Each First Lady, rather than continue with the predecessor’s programme, preferred to embark on a new one.”

    Makinde also listed “some somersaulted policies”: “They include policy on poverty alleviation, and policy on education.  Starting with policy on poverty alleviation, it is on record that since independence, many programmes, which include Operation Feed the Nation (OFN: 1979), the National Directorate of Employment (NDE: 1986), the Better Life Programme (BLP: 1987), People’s Bank (1989), Community Bank (1990), and the National Poverty Alleviation Programme (NAPEP 2001), had been established by various governments at one time or the other to tackle the problem of poverty and food insecurity.” Her conclusion: “In spite of all the above-mentioned programmes, poverty is still very visible among Nigerians.”

    This brings us to the pointlessness of policies that never get to the point. Makinde said: “Various studies have shown that most government policies have failed, at the implementation stage, to achieve the desired results.” Policy making without successful policy implementation amounts to daydreaming.

     

  • Kanu and the tortoise

    The adventures of Nnamdi Kanu and his Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) reminds the cultural-minded of the tortoise in the Yoruba folktale.

    The tortoise woke up one day and declared himself travel-bound.  Asked when he would return, he snapped that would be when he was disgraced.

    In Ola Rotimi’s play, Kurunmi, the tragic tale of the fall, during the Ijaye war with Ibadan, of the Aare Ona Kakanfo (war generalissimo) of the Oyo Empire, in Yoruba history, the late Prof. Rotimi, in explosive dramatics, linked Kurunmi’s hubris — and fall — to this tortoise’s wilful baiting of disgrace — for how can any sane being declare he won’t come home until he faced disgrace?

    This was just a Yoruba tale.  But other civilizations too always warned of the dangers of hubris.

    In Greek and Roman classical drama, the concept of the hubris, or the fatal flaw, was a constant staple.  As the Yoruba warned of false pride aka the tortoise, the Greeks and the Romans warned their mighty to be wary of hubris — else the gods were ever willing to cut cocky humans to size.  And o, the Igbo, Kanu’s people, also warned of the folly of jousting with your chi (personal god)!

    IPOB’s Nnamdi Kanu might not have been well read.  His profile too might not have matched the status of the Greco-Roman greats, that qualified for the gods’ baleful and malevolent treatment, if the human stepped out of line.

    Still in Willy Loman, the American Arthur Miller proved in his play, Death of a Salesman, which ran on a novel concept of little people’s tragedy (note the pun, “low man” and Loman), that hubris was no monopoly of the mighty.

    So, it is with Kanu and his IPOB rabble.  They started their campaign of hate by threatening and insulting and abusing the non-Igbo.  Then, when the federal authorities reacted, they started threatening the fire and brimstone of instant secession.

    When the so-called “northern youths” responded with an equally crazy quit-the-North-by-October 1-or-else order, and the Ohanaeze finally found its voice to stem the danger, the Ohanaeze became the new IPOB punching bag.  After that, it was Kanu’s ridicule of the South East governors for daring to caution moderation.

  • And Peavey peeves Power Minister

    Our brothers from much more ordered climes often visit us with a mindset that is sometimes as derisive as it is warped. Their oft distorted worldview about us could a times, graze on the fringes of idiocy. Here is a joke told us long ago in school by one of our American-trained don which will explain our point today.

    At an international scholars’ seminar in the States, a Chinese scholar, let’s call him Wang, had supped rather noisily on his soup during lunch break. It was as if he had never had soup so good. Now an American scholar who had watched it all obviously in veiled disgust had sidled up to Wang after meal and sniggered jokingly: “You enjoyed the soupe?”

    “Yes, yes,” the oriental professor answered without giving away anything.

    Not long after, Professor Wang took to the podium and literally set the hall ablaze – in a manner of speaking. He had delivered a world class paper in perfect American accent. As he walked back to his seat amid standing ovation from his peers from across the world, he paused ever so briefly by his American ‘friend’ who is still standing reverently and quipped: “You enjoyed the speeche?”

    Prejudice and superiority complex are parts of human nature it must be said but sometimes when served with a distasteful dose of mischief and insult, they sure rankle. This must be the case in the small matter between the Managing Director of Egbin Power Plc., Mr. Dallas Peavey Jnr. and the Minster of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola.

    Addressing some visiting American Senators at his plant recently, Peavey had painted a very dire and dismal picture of the situation at his plant and by extension, the power sector in general. According to report, Peavey told his guests that his plant suffered under an industry-wide debt burden of N125 billion; he also told them that The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) could not evacuate mere 700 megawatts generated by his plant.

    Peavey’s statement of course left the Minister in charge of Power peeved. Like Mr. Wang above, Fashola happens to know his beat a bit and he minced no words in letting the American know that he was either trading in mischief or outright lies. He marched his words with figures as he is wont: only N27 billion of the touted debt has been verified and Egbin plant can only generate 344mw at the time of report because three of its six turbines were not functioning.

    There is no doubt here who has all the facts and who understands the fine details. With most other government gumps, Peavey may have gotten away with what may be mere unthinking bombast – but not with Fash.

  • A private letter in the public sphere

    When columnist Olatunji Dare returned to column writing for The Nation on September 12, after a two-week break, with a column titled “Back on the beat,” he drew public attention to a letter sent to him by Yusuph Olaniyonu, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to Senate President Bukola Saraki. The letter was Olaniyonu’s response to Dare’s column of August 15 titled “A preface to the silly season.”

    Dare said: “Olaniyonu sent it as a “private letter.”  But since it raises issues that belong in the public sphere, I sought his kind permission to publish it herewith, slightly edited.”

    In the said piece, Dare had focused on “those aspiring to be president,” saying what he presented was “by no means an exhaustive list.”  He added: “By the time the game really gets going, we may have as many as 240, if not more…As the game gathers momentum, almost everything else will be suspended.  Everything else will be subordinated to winning.”

    Dare’s list featured Saraki, which is why Olaniyonu wrote to him. The columnist had written: “Where else but up can Senate President Bukola Saraki go in the scheme of things?  Given the way he vaulted himself into his current position, and the Faustian bargain he made along the way, it was clear that he was out for the top job.”

    It is public knowledge that Saraki got to the helm of affairs at the Senate through an unapologetic defiance of his party’s desire and decision. The same twist resulted in a queer combination and cohabitation with Saraki of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as Senate President and  Ike Ekweremadu of the discredited Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as  Deputy Senate President. It is clear that Saraki is politically ambitious and perhaps desperate for high political office. His political moves and manoeuvres are the stuff of news, and stuff worthy of condemnation.

    So, Olaniyonu sounded unenlightened when he tried to fault “The Nation and Punch” for “their constant searchlight on Saraki and their unrepentant mischief against the man.”  He said of Dare’s list of possible presidential aspirants:  ”This error of omission or deliberate decision not to mention Asiwaju Tinubu gave an unmistakable impression that the article in question is part of the ploy by the Bourdillon media/Intellectual Think Thank to which you are widely believed to belong, to quickly take out the other potential rivals long before the race commences. However, I believe The Nation and its columnists will not have the last say on who becomes the next President after Buhari, either in 2019 or 2023.”

    Of course, it is expected that the sovereign electorate will have the last say when the time comes. It is also expected that insightful columnists like Dare will help shape public opinion so that the voters won’t endorse a figure with a questionable track record.

  • Again, Ajekun Iya!

    How, how do you translate “ajekun iya” from Yoruba to English?  Multiple and comprehensive thrashing?  Sheer mauling? Or, just a massacre?

    Well, this enquiry is necessary, for a self-fulfilling prophesy appears to be hanging on the neck of the cocky prophet, in a bathetic real-life case of the hunter fast becoming the hunted.

    In a fit of senatorial hubris; no, senatorial delinquency of the most juvenile hue, or maybe a medley of the two, Dino Melaye, himself the unabashed senatorial din, promised whoever came against him a comprehensive drubbing — ajekun iya!

    Now, that was no empty boast, for he was flush with victory over enemies, real or imagined.  He had emerged from a certificate scandal, laying claim to degrees he didn’t have and claiming kin with some famous foreign universities he never attended.  In some jurisdictions, that should have ended any illustrious political career.

    Not here!  When Dino emerged at Senate plenary in a full academic ceremonial dress, it was a sweeping victory over his traducers, who insisted Dino was nothing but a phoney din.

    Then, he went forth, launching a book on corruption, to wide critical acclaim, not for its scholastic rigour, but for the cascade of cash it spewed.

    Even when the little inconvenience of electoral recall reared its head, from those hoi polloi claiming to be his electors, good, old Dino wouldn’t be bothered.  Who, after all, were these scum, to threaten him with recall?

    Before you could shout “Dino”, Bukola Saraki’s Senate was even propagating the theory, exceedingly sweet in the circumstance, that they were supreme to the voters that elected them, since they would first have to vet the recall process!

    And should the Senate have a hand?  Dino would have nothing to fear, such that the recall crowd would have no choice but to recall their recall.  Ajekun iya!

    Besides, the courts were there.  They would find for Dino’s just cause, against an ungrateful and recalcitrant electorate, wouldn’t they?

    So, if you saw Dino the Boisterous caper away with reckless abandon, at a London carnival, not regarding his senatorial dignity — not unlike Biblical King David dancing without royal self-possession before the Ark of Covenant — you must see, in the Dino body language, that the recall nonsense was done and dusted.  Ajekun iya!

    Well, not so fast!    The chicken of sobriety has come home to roost.  The high court just ruled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must continue with the recall process.

    That is subject to appeal, of course, all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.  But as long as the process lasts, neither Dino nor his electors that want so badly to get rid of him would not rest.  It is the cock perched on the taut rope.  Neither the cock nor the rope would know peace.

    The voters, perhaps would play the patient game.  The future, after all, is a patient bird, particularly if it can smell carrion.

    But it is Dino that would have to battle and struggle against the fulfilment of a self-proclaimed prophesy — ajekun iya!

  • False accusation

    So, it may be said that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is guilty of false accusation. Before the Police Service Commission (PSC) clarified things on September 6, the public didn’t know what to believe.

    Police spokesman Jimoh Moshood had branded Senator Isah Misau a deserter. Misau,Chairman, Senate Committee on Navy, and a former Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), had fired the first shot on August 25 while addressing National Assembly Correspondents. He accused the police leadership of corruption related acts that made nonsense of the anti-corruption war of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

    Misau, who represents Bauchi Central, alleged mainly: “Information reaching me indicate that, even transfers of Commissioners of Police, State Mobile Commanders and SPU Commanders are also allegedly riddled with corruption. Some Commissioners of Police and State Mobile Commanders pay between N10m to N15m to get postings. There is also the allegation that more than 50,000 policemen are attached to oil companies, banks and private individuals with payments made to the Police authorities. These people pay as much as N10bn monthly. They are however unaccounted for.”

    Moshood fired back and accused the senator of desertion and forgery. He said:  ”Senator Isah Hamman Misau dubiously absconded and deserted the Nigeria Police Force on September 24, 2010…”  He also described the resignation letter Misau brandished as “suspiciously forged and dubiously obtained,” adding, “The letter, which was dated 5th March, 2014, a period of more than four years after AP No 57300 DSP Mohammed Isa Hamman (Senator Isah Hamman Misau) deserted the Force is now being investigated by the Force.”

    This scandalous exchange of accusations between the police and the senator demanded clarificatory intervention. The needed clarification came after a meeting of the PSC on the intriguing claims and counter-claims.  The commission’s spokesman, Ikechukwu Ani, was quoted as saying: “At the meeting, the panel made some inquiry and they confirmed that the commission issued the letter and that it was based on recommendation for retirement from the Force Headquarters. The police normally recommend people to us for retirement. So, the recommendation came to the commission and Misau’s name was included.”

    Ani added: “We just confirmed that the retirement followed due process. The letter was dated March 5, 2014 to take effect from December 1, 2010.The commission has gone through their document and confirmed that we issued the letter with reference number; PSC/1034/V8/244.  What we are simply saying is that we gave him the letter of retirement.”

    This case of false accusation suggests a failure of investigation on the part of the police; beyond this, it suggests a condemnable lack of integrity and stains the police.

    One more thing: The public needs to know whether Senator Misau’s damaging accusations against the police are true or false.

  • N29m pay: Let’s ask BMB

    An oriental proverb suggests that when a matter gets out of hand you wag your finger at it. In other words, we deal with it. Yet another notes that when a totem begins to act up, you simply make a bonfire of it if only to prove it is made of wood after all.

    The small matter of our National Assembly’s (NASS) take-home pay (or haul home if you prefer), is now seeming to be like the totem and the people. No totem can grow bigger than its people. In like manner, the NASS in all its exfoliation cannot deign cover the nation with its deleterious awnings.

    So before we begin to raise our axes and make street fires, let us defer to the one we know among the Senate of the Federal Republic; the only confessedly imbued with some ‘commonsense’. In fact, he does not only preach and speak about that rare trait – gumption, he is full of spunk and enterprise.

    We speak of no other than our own SENATOR BEN MURRAY-BRUCE. Let us confess that we love Ben; indeed let’s christen  him BMB. Plucky and precocious at once, BMB seems to have been with us since the beginning of time. The dandy, half-caste show promoter, he literally lit our skies in the 80s and gave us a resurgence of the big screen cinema in the 90s.

    When he eventually stepped onto the hustings as his millennium project or projection, it seemed he won our votes two decades earlier. It was almost a shoo in. When he told us he would apply commonsense to the perennially stupid politics of the land, we believed him.

    Commonsense, commonsense and more commonsense, BMB chanted like a crazed parrot until we cried and begged him to stop.

    Two years on and we ask our dear Senator BMB: how much exactly do you take (some say haul) home each month? Now this is the most commonsensical question Nigerians are asking their NASS members and all they get in the place of a simple answer heeing and hawing as if they suffer a bad case of craw-craw.

    We ask this question persistently and indeed insistently because even we are ashamed on behalf of our NASS members… yes it didn’t start today but honestly, we can’t face the world anymore with rumours of alleged hefty ‘steal’ of a salary. So exasperated, The Economist of London once said yours was the best-paid job in the world.

    Every day, at every turn people call you guys thieves; if there is none with shame, is there also none with commonsense in the house.? C’mon, even the best thief can’t earn N3 billion per annum!